President Yoweri Museveni has demanded that Kenya hands over for trial its nationals from the Turkana ethnic group, who allegedly killed five Ugandans in the volatile north eastern Karamoja region in March 2022.

In Executive Order No. 3 of 2023, issued on 19 May as a decree to stop illegal arms from entering Uganda, the veteran leader also gave the Turkanas a six-month ultimatum to leave the country, failing which he would expel them all from Ugandan soil. 

Among those killed in the raid by suspected Turkana cattle rustlers were three geologists from the Ministry of Energy, an officer from the Uganda Peoples Defiance Forces and a soldier. 

“The killers of the geologists must be returned to us for trial on murder charges. The guns have been returned to the government of Uganda, but not the killers,” the executive order reads in part.

The document, written in a terse tone, is likely to test relations between Uganda and the government of President William Ruto.

President Museveni described the Turkana issue as “another destabilizing factor” in his efforts to disarm the Karimojong warriors and keep secure the region that borders Kenya to the northwest.

Read more in The EastAfrican here